Behind Closed Doors
by pezgirl1
Summary: Maybe there is a reason why Willow is never that bothered with her parent’s neglect.Or maybe they aren’t her biological parents.In the year 2015 Willow looks back on her life before she was adopted by the Rosenbergs.WARNING: CHILD ABUSE! please R&R!
1. Chapter 1

Behind closed doors: chapter one

12 years after season 7.

2015

Willow saw the face of an angry looking man above her and back away fearfully, he was yelling at her but she couldn't hear what he was saying. She flinched in mounting panic as he pulled back his fist…

"Willow! Will…damn…" who was talking to her? It didn't sound like her…who was he?...oh yeah, but she was trying to forget about that.

She felt to hands on her shoulders restraining her, she'd obviously been thrashing around in her nightmare-filled sleep again. Still trembling she looked at her husband and he looked back at her, his normally calm and hard-to-read-face full of concern and a little anger.

"You okay now?" he asked relaxing his grip on her.

Willow sighed and pulled herself up into a sitting position on their bed, the moonlight filtered in through the window and illuminated their bedroom. She covered her face with her hands and rubbed her eyes.

"I'm fine, Oz. Just another nightmare," she explained wearily. She was glad that Oz had fully learned to control his furry-side on full moon, she hated the aftermath of the dreams and knew she'd hate them even more without him their to comfort her.

"About Richard?" his voice went slightly colder as he used that name.

Oz had found out about Richard, her birth father, years ago when a particularly nasty demon had made her relive her pre-Sunnydale life, that was when the Scoobies had found out that she wasn't born on the Hellmouth and that the Rosenbergs weren't her biological parents.

"Yeah," she replied to the question. If it wasn't Richard it was Kathryn.

"Mommy?" they looked in direction of their bedroom and saw a small, pale, freckled face looking at them anxiously. Obviously she's woken the eight year old up, damn.

"C'mere Ryan," Willow lifted the sheets up and smiled brightly as the small strawberry-blond haired boy bounded over to the bed and climbed up with his mom's help.

She released the covers so that they fell around them and hugged him to her, he looked at her with his bright blue eyes, just like his father's, and asked, "Did you have another bad dream?"

"It's all better now, sweetie," she said cuddling him.

"I'm glad," he said happily. He looked exactly like his father; hair, eyes, nose, mouth, smile all from his father. Even his quiet and calm personality. The only thing he'd inherited from his mother was the magic and a fear of frogs and spiders.

As she hugged Ryan she wondered, not for the first time, how her 'parents' could have hurt her so much; she was younger than Ryan, only five, when she'd been taken into care and away from her biological parents because of the abuse.

She turned to Oz, "What time is it?"

"Four thirty-six am," he replied a moment later.

"Can I sleep in here?" Ryan asked wrapping his arms around her middle hopefully.

"Sure sweetie," she replied before stroking his longish hair.

"Us too!" came two high-pitched voices and then two five year olds; a boy and a girl came running in excitedly.

Ryan grinned while Oz and Willow looked at each other. "C'mon then," Oz pulled the redheaded twins up onto their bed.

Daniel climbed over his dad so that he was between his parents, Tara was hugging her dad as the covers were placed over her too.

"Let's go to sleep now," said Oz pointedly.

Willow hoped the nightmares would stay away for the rest of the night; for now, the memories wouldn't.

The redhead witch was beyond grateful that she had been taken away from Richard and Kathryn Grey; she didn't want to know where she would be now if she had remained with them.

Knowing that her life could've been worse was one of the reasons why she'd never been that upset over her adoptive parents lack of interest in her life. They were better than her other parents.

While she tried to sleep the memories were as vivid as ever, she remembered…


	2. Chapter 2

Behind closed doors: chapter two

1985

Willow ran upstairs to her room as fast as she could and closed the door quickly, she sniffed and wiped at her tears with her free hand.

She looked down at her left arm which was hurting very badly and looked horrible- a mess of black, blue and red.

She couldn't move it, it hurt SO much!

She bit her lip to stifle a sob, if she cried her daddy would get angry and hurt her more, she doubled over in pain and a small sob escaped her lips.

She backed against the wall and slid down carefully and curled into a ball trying desperately to stop the pain.

She gritted her teeth and grimaced and then jumped in terror and shock as her father came crashing into her room like a charging bull.

She quivered in terror as her daddy loomed over her, his dead, black eyes glaring into her own emerald-green ones.

"Get up you stupid bitch!" he yelled and grabbed her long, untidy red hair roughly and pulled her up onto her feet.

She cried out in pain as her arm flared in pain and a second later she wished she'd just kept her fucking mouth shut.

Richard Grey's black eyes darkened with rage and barely stopped himself from beating the crap out of her, the only reason that he didn't is that the nurses would get suspicious if she went to the hospital with more than a few bruises and a broken arm.

So he just released his rage by yelling and screaming at her.

Finally after about ten minutes of being yelled at Richard grasped his daughter's uninjured arm and dragged her to the car.

When they finally got there he put on the false face of a scared father, "Can you help my daughter- she broke her arm!"

He made sure that his voice was panicky and as usual the receptionist believed what she thought she was seeing.

She called over a doctor immediately.

At that moment four-year-old Willow Grey wished with all her heart that she could tell someone that her daddy was horrible.

But she had broken a plate, she was bad and her daddy said that when children were bad they got punished.

So she told no one.

When she was placed onto a bed the nurse walked out of the cubicle and then just as she had suspected her daddy grabbed the back of her neck and whispered in her ear, "Don't you say a word, you deserved what you got and you know it."

Willow nodded quickly, her daddy was right- she did a bad thing and she shouldn't be even worse so she had to pay for what she did.

She did though, she broke the plate and her daddy broke her arm- he said that they were even now.

A small voice in the child's head said that even when she didn't do a wrong she got hurt- so how was that fair.

She ignored it.

By the time the nurse had come back her daddy had told her what to say.

"I-I fell off m-my bike," she wasn't very good at lying especially when she was scared.

The nurse nodded and wrote notes on her clip-board and the girl sighed inwardly, she didn't even have a bike!

The nurse made a disapproving noise and said to Willow that she should try to stay out of trouble and then she wouldn't be in the hospital all the time!

Willow pushed her stress down, It wasn't her!

The she felt guilty- she was horrible and now she was hoping with all of her heart and soul that someone would save her.

It was her fault this happened, her daddy was just disciplining her- she should be better.

She wished she was, and then her mommy and daddy wouldn't hurt her so much.

After Willow and her father left the hospital they went home and she had another cast on her arm.

She stayed up in her room as usual and stared off into space trying to escape into her fantasies again.

Willow knew that she should be looking at her book of math sums, but she couldn't concentrate.

Usually she could but when she was upset by being punished her mind went fuzzy and she couldn't add in her mind anymore.

She liked it better in kindergarten when no one hit her, she could concentrate better there and she also never got into trouble.

The teachers liked her a lot, which she found confusing, if others liked her then she couldn't be THAT bad!

Unfortunately, she always felt the usual stab of guilt and told the voice to shut up.

The teachers didn't know her, but her mommy and daddy did and they knew what they had to do to make her a better person.

Maybe they only liked her because she was good at her work, she was always learning things- which is what she liked doing.

When she learned and concentrated on her work it was like she almost forgot about what her life at home was like, she felt normal.

Her learning was her lifeline and she intended to latch onto it.

As she got better at her work the teachers always had weird looks on their faces, but they weren't bad looks.

Seven months ago the teachers had given Willow an IQ Test, she didn't know what it was but she knew that it was important.

She was glad that her parents had to wait outside because if they hadn't then she wouldn't have been able to do it.

So she worked on the questions on the sheet and a few days later she got the test back- which fortunately was given to her at school and not at home.

She got a score of 165.

She asked of that was good and the teachers said that she was special, she had hardly believed it.

She wished that she hadn't for those few hours, because when she got home and told her mommy and daddy what her score was and what the teachers had said…

She had gotten the worst beating of her life, which was saying something!

So she didn't say anything about herself that was good anymore.

Willow turned back to her math book and sighed, maybe she would try to concentrate.

Five hours later Willow had finished three quarters of the book and looked triumphant the book was pretty big and she'd almost finished it.

But then her parents started yelling and screaming and she curled up into a ball looking close to tears.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter three

Date: 1986

Willow's teacher looked around the room as she taught her class, many of the students were slouching and looking bored.

Some were even half asleep, but the little redhead in the second row was wide awake and listening carefully.

Miss Tyson was in her early twenties and like teaching a lot even when the children she taught were less than enthusiastic about Math.

But Willow Grey was a mystery to her, she was very quiet and jumpy and usually had a look of fear on her face.

She got along well with the girl she was sitting next to, but seemed to be too afraid to speak to people.

So, the teacher felt that it was her responsibility to watch out for the child, she had met Mr and Mrs Grey a few months ago and they both gave her the creeps.

They were all laughs and caring on the outside but the laughter and goodness that other people talked about did not reach their eyes at all- in fact she knew that there was something off about them.

She dismissed the class as the bell went and watched as the redhead gathered her books up and shoved them into her bag.

Then she saw that Willow's friend- Alyson- had accidentally bumped into Willow's arm and made the girl wince as if in pain.

Miss Tyson watched as the girl walked out of glass with mounting concern, she thought about all the times she'd winced and flinched and jumped when people touched her.

Yes, the teacher thought. She would watch the kid closely.

Willow shifted as she waited for her mother to pick her up from school and jumped in fright when she felt a hand on her arm.

She relaxed when she saw that it was Alyson, "See you tomorrow Willow!"

Willow smiled at her, Alyson was her only friend and she was grateful that she even had one.

Alyson was always commenting on her bruises and said just said that she fell over a lot, but the black-haired girl didn't believe her at all.

Thankfully she didn't press any further.

Willow saw her parent's car drive up to her and the door opened, she climbed inside.

When they got in Kathryn Grey told her daughter to go upstairs and stay out of her way, so she did.

Willow sat on her bed and read a Disney book- another way to escape reality- it was called, 'Cinderella' she had read it about a million times since she'd won it as a prize for the 'Bingo' game they played in school.

She heard rapid and loud footsteps and tensed, knowing what was going to happen.

The door burst open and her mother stomped into the room looking angry- and also drunk.

Kathryn Grey swayed and held up a half-full bottle of Vodka, "How dare you help yourself to my drink!!" she screeched.

Willow just gaped looking and feeling bewildered and then her mom threw the bottle at her- she ducked and the glass flew past her and shattered against the wall.

Her mother's face went bright red, "Now look what you've done!"

Willow backed away and dusked under her mother's outstretched arms when she came at her and ran out of the bedroom door as fast as she could.

Unfortunately when she got downstairs her dad tackled her to the ground and punched her in the face leaving the five year old dazed.

Her dad picked her up and flung her across the room, angrily.

She grunted as she landed hard on the carpet and got up quickly- then she swayed as the room did too.

She saw both her parents coming towards her rapidly and terror jumped up into her spine, she ran fast but her unsteadiness caused her to crash into the Liquor cabinet which rocked backwards against the wall and then forwards and loomed over the frozen girl.

At the last moment her drunken mother tackled her away from the cabinet and started beating her- she obviously hadn't realized that she had unintentionally saved her daughter from being crushed.

Her mom froze in shock as she heard the cabinet shatter and break as it impacted on the carpet, her face went purple with cold rage and she snapped.

"You STUPID fucking bitch!" she screamed in rage and shook and punched Willow as hard as she could. "You smashed my drink!"

Then Willow blacked out.

When she came to she was in a hospital bed again and looked around groggily.

Her head hurt- everything did.

Willow caught sight of a needle in her wrist and heard a steady beeping sound from a machine by her bed.

"Huh?" was the only sound she could make at that moment.

She jumped as a few nurses walked in and she watched them, then one of them looked at her and said, "The girl's awake!"

Willow's eyes widened as she nurses checked her over and began talking to her in a soft voice, "Hiya sweetie, just relax okay."

Willow could only nod in reply.

Twenty minutes later a Social Worker was sitting on Willow's bed and talking to her softly.

"Now, I know you think that you deserve what your…._parents _did to you, but you should know that no child should ever be treated the way you were," he sighed looking sad. "Unfortunately, children like you slip through out net."

Willow looked at him in confusion.

"Willow, I want you to tell me what happened last week," he had said that she had been in a coma for five and a half days and was lucky that a next door neighbor had heard screams and rescued her.

Willow shook her head feeling afraid, "No, I-I-I… they didn't do anything!"

He didn't believe her- she knew it.

"Willow, no one deserves-

But she cut him off, "No! I smashed the bottle- and then other ones as well!"

The Social Worker shook his head and looked at her compassionately, "That doesn't mean you deserve to be hurt like that."

Willow shook her head furiously and then her head span, it took her a minute to get her head clearer.

"No, I was bad- they said so!"

In the end the Social Worker had to leave to prevent Willow getting further agitated.

As the Social Worker- Brian Dann- walked out of the Hospital door he tried to think of ways that he could help Willow and get her parents locked up behind bars.

They were already being held in custody over suspected child abuse and attempted murder- if they both were convicted of those crimes they could be looking a minimum of seven years in prison.


End file.
